Really, REALLY Bad Analogies

-- from the Washington Post, July 23, 1995 In which we asked you to come up with bad analogies. The results were great, though we feel compelled to point out that there is a fine line between an analogy that is so bad it is good and an analogy that is so good it is bad. See what we mean.

4th Runner-Up:

Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein's Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances.

-- Jennifer Frank, Washington, and Jimmy Pontzer, Sterling

3rd Runner-Up:

The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas.

-- Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills

2nd Runner-Up:

I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don't speak German. Anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don't know the name for those either.

-- Jack Bross, Chevy Chase

1st Runner-Up:

She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can't sing worth a damn.

-- Joseph Romm, Washington

And the winner of the framed Scarlet Fever sign:

His fountain pen was so expensive it looked as if someone had grabbed the pope, turned him upside down and started writing with the tip of his big pointy hat.

-- Jeffrey Carl, Richmond